Do I need avahi?

[Bill Davidsen]

Joe Zeff wrote:
> On 07/28/2013 02:41 PM, lee wrote:
>> Yes, so why don't they use 'disable' to disable something rather than
>> "masking" it so it isn't started during booting?
>>
>
> I think that the idea is that a service that's enabled is always started at
> boot, one that's disabled doesn't get started until it's needed (and only then)
> and one that's masked doesn't get started at all.  (In fact, you can't start it
> while it's masked, even manually.)
>
Exactly so, and thanks for saving me from having to clarify.
     stop - the running service
  disable - disable the auto-start of the service
     mask - make the service unavailable by any means.

>> Do the native English speakers here agree that 'disable' means to turn
>> something off so it's not available for use?  If so, I'll make a bug
>> report about this.
>
Don't bother, the confusion is that the auto-start is being disabled, not the 
service itself. There is only so much you can put in one word which removes the 
need to learn what the options for a command are and mean. If we were starting 
over I would have used "auto/noauto" instead of enable/disable, but that's not 
enough better to justify breaking scripts at this point. Those forms could be 
added as synonyms if people like them, however, breaking nothing.

> If nothing else, the meanings of the term are sufficiently ambiguous that even
> native English speakers don't find them intuitively obvious. If you do file a
> bug report, I'd suggest that it be listed as being UI related, and that you post
> a link here so that those of us who feel the same can add some "me too" comments
> and maybe give the maintainer more of a sense of how much of a problem it really
> is.  Also, you should be aware that the entry for mask in the man page for
> systemctl explains just how thorough it is, because whoever maintains it might
> feel that the existing warning is all that's needed.

Lewis Carroll said it best,   "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it 
to mean - neither more nor less."
	-Humpty Dumpty


-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot